Reading time: 2minutesPele Harman, center, is a teacher at Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu, UH Hilo’s Hawaiian language immersion school for elementary and high school students. (courtesy of PBS Hawaiʻi)
Poet Bob Holman travels across the globe to uncover answers to a question scholars have asked for many years—What does it take to save a language? His travels include a stop in Hawaiʻi to feature ongoing efforts to perpetuate the native language.
Language Matters with Bob Holman makes its Hawaiʻi broadcast premiere Thursday, March 19, 8 p.m. on PBS Hawaiʻi. Filmed around the world, the two-hour documentary features Hawaiʻi in the third of three acts.
Hawaiʻi participants
Arlene W. Eaton, a kupuna who grew up speaking only Hawaiian
Lolena Nicholas, Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language instructor
Puakea Nogelmeier, UH Mānoa Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language professor
Kealiʻi Reichel, kumu hula and a celebrated singer and songwriter
Kauaʻi Sai-Dudoit, works at the Hawaiian Language Newspaper Archive
Go the the show website for more on each participant.
Other global stops
In Australia, Holman visits Charlie Mangulda, an Aboriginal songman (poet), who is the only person left on the planet who speaks Amurdak. With linguist Nick Evans, Holman also flies to Goulburn Island off the coast of Northern Australia, where he meets a community of 400 people speaking 10 languages, many endangered, all vulnerable.
In Wales, Holman explores the humor, rage and lyricism of the Welsh people, who brought their language back from the edge of extinction. Currently, three million people live in Wales and speak the native language.
